Similarly, the rotten bloc of the USC with Zelensky and NATO, means that not only are they unable to effectively criticise Zelensky or NATO, but they end up actively apologising for them. Paul Mason posits NATO, ridiculously, as something that radical socialists could utilise as a means of spreading progress and “anti-fascism” across the globe. One supporter of the USC even described NATO as “the most progressive force on the planet”! The AWL's, Jim Denham, proclaims that the capitalist state and NATO are defenders of the working-class!! And, whereas the liberal media, prior to the war, ran stories about the corrupt, illiberal nature of Zelensky's regime, the prevalence of anti-Semitism and the fascist nature of the Azov Battalion and Right Sector, after the start of the war, not only did such stories end, but even the supposed revolutionaries in the USC, painted the regime in bright pastel shades.
“By referring to its collaboration with the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions in the “struggle for peace”, the General Council is able to soothe and lull the consciousness of the British proletariat, stirred by the danger of war. The All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions now appears before the British working class and the working class of the whole world as a sort of guarantor for the international policy of the traitors of the General Council. The criticism directed by the revolutionary elements in Britain against the General Council thereby becomes weakened and blunted.” (p 60-61)
And, the role of the USC, particularly those organisations affiliated to it that claim some heritage from Trotskyism, perform the same role, today. What is more, as NATO imperialism, spearheaded by US imperialism, is engaged in a global economic war against Russian and Chinese imperialism, growing over, every day, into an all out military conflagration, much as happened from the late 1920's, up to WWII, the role of social-imperialism is the same, of sleepwalking the global working-class into such a war that threatens the existence of humanity itself.
“Thanks to Purcell, Hicks and Company, the MacDonalds and Thomases get the possibility of keeping the working masses in a stupor up to the threshold of war itself, in order to call upon them then for the defence of the democratic fatherland.” (p 61)
Logically, the members of the USC that claim that their position is based on the right to self-determination, and national independence/sovereignty should have supported Brexit, on the same sovereigntist basis, set out by the Lexiters. Given that, in the referendum, a majority accepted those sovereigntist arguments – now proclaimed on steroids by Starmer's Blue Labour – by the Brexiters and Lexiters, they should, at least, have agreed with the position of Corbyn, and his Stalinist advisors that the decision had to be “respected”! The opportunist, tailist argument always leads to national chauvinism.
The Zionists of the AWL, have argued, since their Damascene conversion to that ideology, the right of the Zionist, capitalist state to defend itself, i.e. to "defend the fatherland", which meant they could hardly argue against such social patriotism, and defence of the fatherland when it came to other capitalist state, especially given on their superficial insistence that the Zionist state should be treated as any other capitalist state! Hence their position on the front line of defenders of the Zionist genocide being conducted against Palestinians, on presenting the case in those terms of its "right to defend itself"!
The consequence of the Stalinist bloc with the TUC leaders was the defeat of the General Strike, and victory of Baldwin's Tory government. That was the same Tory government that presided over the role of British colonialism in China, and whose gunboats sat in Chinese waters to enforce it, as they had done during The Opium Wars. In fact, the TUC leaders acquiesced in that role too. Yet, the Stalinists could not, and did not criticise those TUC leaders, because of being in a bloc with them. Trotsky refers to an interview given by Tomsky.
“These “allies” are not mentioned by name in the interview as though they do not even exist. Then why a bloc with them? But they do exist. Without them Thomas does not exist politically. Without Thomas there exists no Baldwin, that is, the capitalist régime in England. Contrary to our best intentions, our support of the bloc with Purcell is actually support of the whole British régime and the facilitation of its work in China. After all that has happened, this is clear to every revolutionist who has gone through the school of Lenin. In a like manner, our collaboration with Chiang Kai-shek blunted the class vigilance of the Chinese proletariat, and thereby facilitated the April coup d’état.” (p 61)
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